Nvidia has released an official note explaining that GeForce GPUs are not responsible for the crashes on Intel-based systems. While it’s on the CPU manufacturer to fix 13th and 14th-Gen issues quickly, there are a few things you can do to temporarily alleviate the problem.
Following the growing number of user complaints regarding system instabilities of machines featuring an Nvidia GPU and Intel CPU, the Green Team has issued the following statement: “If your system is using an Intel 13th/14th Gen unlocked desktop CPU and is experiencing stability issues/out of video memory error messages/crash to desktop while the game is compiling shaders, please consult the following sites for troubleshooting assistance.”
The first is a discussion on Intel’s forum where users indicate their findings and solutions. The latter is a post from RAD Game Tools with some troubleshooting steps. That said, it seems that nobody has found a final solution yet. Thus, we have to wait for Intel to finish its investigation.
This issue seems to mainly concern computers running 13th and 14th-Gen Intel Core processors. More specifically, it manifests as crashes or blue screens during shader compilation on CPUs that run at high clock speeds. In particular, Core i9 13900K or 14900K crop up more often than the others. However, since some of the affected games – many of which use Unreal Engine – spew an error message talking about lack of video memory, Nvidia had to clarify that its GPUs are not the root cause of this problem.
For now, the best fix seems to be a CPU underclock/undervolt. And we’re not talking performance-degrading reductions. A few steps down the CPU multiplier is apparently enough to stabilise things. For example, from 56x to 55x on Intel Core i7-14700K does wonders. This equates to 100MHz lower frequency, so it’s not a hefty price for better stability.